I watched redemption last night. It was pretty good. It in some way reminded me of gunman. They were both plot driven action movie. But gunman was a prettier movie, redemption felt more like a social issue movie. Gunman also reminded me of American sniper. But Action in american sniper was not the focus. Gunman was the opposite, at least to me. The reason I chose gunman to watch was simply because I was quite impressed with sean penn in the secret life of walter mitty. I passed redemption many times in library simply because I felt that jason statham was just being himself in most of movies. It's tiresome after a while. This movie held up because the plot. I said social issue at first because the featurette of the movie mentioned that 10% of homeless wanderers in london was ex soldiers. That is a surprising thing to me. And the movie describing such character with a story arch that slowly exploded was quite nice. Jason statham was not bad here.
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外公要給舅媽接風,因為他上個星期才從 DC 回來. 於是我和媽媽作陪客和舅舅, 舅媽, 外公去老四川吃飯. 去的路上, 媽媽不斷講話. 說到今天早上, 外公竟然和媽媽說, 老王的爸爸三年前帶著老王來到了美國, 又學英文, 又學中文, 又教老王詩詞, 所以老王現在可以寫寫詩詞, 都是她老爸教的. 但是, 老王就是懶惰, 所以英文現在一個字不識, 只會在後面種黃瓜. 媽媽說他聽了就禁不住大笑起起來. 因為老王的是自己夫妻倆自己來的. 而且, 老王都六十了, 他過世的老爸即使真的來了, 也已經九十左右了, 怎麼可能又學英文, 又學中文? 可是和他面對面的外公可就完全不能理解媽媽為啥笑了. 所以他很不滿意,他自己和老媽講正經話, 卻被笑成這樣實在太不像話了. 媽媽說他自己聽完後, 就趕快打電話給佩蘭阿姨. 現在又忍不住得要講再一遍. 舅舅說他早就聽過了. 媽媽聽了說, 那你怎麼沒有和我講過哩? 舅舅說, 我腦袋裡總不能老裝著這些東西啊.
去老四川, 叫菜後都是一大碗飯, 大家分著吃. 現在大家去吃的都有譜了, 口水魚, 獅子頭, 辣子雞, 白油燃麵, 夫妻肺片. 吃著, 吃著, 舅舅, 舅媽, 也就隨口問問我最近怎麼樣. 因為好像聽說, 我因肩傷已經一陣子沒去瑜珈, 然後三天前, 胃又出了大毛病. 我也問問毛這次回來的情況. 我也說上次去問毛, 如果我睡不著, 怎麼辦? 毛就說聽呼吸然後不要去控制呼吸, 應該可以幫助. 媽媽一直擔心外公吃不飽, 因為菜都是辣的. 後來, 獅子頭上來了, 媽媽才稍微鬆了口氣. 那一大碗飯也在這時快要吃完. 舅媽常常說的, 來老四川他似乎是來吃白飯的. 因為所有的菜都很下飯. 講完沒多久, 外公就和舅舅說, 我這一輩子沒看過, 出來吃飯大家猛吃白飯, 白飯都吃完了, 結果所有的菜都還剩的. 這樣看來, 真是太不好意思了. 今天我請客, 如果這些菜不喜歡, 就再叫一些其他的! 在他的催促下, 我們後來又點了個甜品.
回家的路上, 我印象最深的就是, 舅舅和舅媽解釋外公總是小小心心的看著大家的一舉一動. 看看每個人喜歡吃得甚麼菜. 把這些當作資料收到腦袋裡儲存在 data base 裡, 將來可以利用. 後來媽媽不知道說了甚麼, 舅媽說這些都是很令人難過的事情. 再後來, 媽媽不知道為甚麼大聲問舅舅, 咦, 掛在你後照鏡上的牌子是你去工作的停車場牌子嗎? 舅舅沒有回答, 舅媽一下子把那塊牌子拿下來放進手邊的小櫃子裡.
一旁的外公睡睡醒醒, 到家的時候, 本來舅舅還要和他去麥當勞喝咖啡. 但是外公看起來早忘了,一付睡眼惺忪的樣子. 也回家去了.
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I watched it follows last week. This movie has late 80's and early 90's vibe. The atmosphere was gradually building up. It's a pretty good film. The subject in the movie was very interesting. My interpretation of the theme was that it's about STD. But I guess it can also have many guesses. This and Babadook are the two horror films I saw lately. Both are very thoughtful. They both use a lot of metaphors to bring out the fear in people rather than just plain monsters and gore. I feel, at least for me, both movies has many aspects that needs to time to dig deeper.
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Sunday, August 16, 2015
Saturday, August 08, 2015
a toast
CJ brought me a toast with 奶酥 (buttercream icing) on it on last Friday afternoon. I was Giddy. Guess my love for food was well known. But the fact that she'd give me one, it was thrilling. Vic must think of me as hopeless and gutless. I can't help it.
CJ talked to me 2 mornings ago, about buttercream icing. She could not find such thing in USA, not even a name for it. So they tried to make it themselves. I went home and did some research, after some futile effort, I typed just the ingredients: beaten butter, dry milk, sugar. Buttercream Icing was what came out. The difference lies that there's no recipe used dry milk, they just used milk.
Anyway, I am still giddy. :D
CJ talked to me 2 mornings ago, about buttercream icing. She could not find such thing in USA, not even a name for it. So they tried to make it themselves. I went home and did some research, after some futile effort, I typed just the ingredients: beaten butter, dry milk, sugar. Buttercream Icing was what came out. The difference lies that there's no recipe used dry milk, they just used milk.
Anyway, I am still giddy. :D
quotes from movie
from movie: Stories We Tell
When you're in the middle of a story, it isn't a story at all but rather a confusion, a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood, like a house in a whirlwind or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard are powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all, when you're telling it to yourself or someone else.
Margaret Atwood
(Alias Grace)
------
(Narrator to his daughter)
And in some ways,that's why
This whole questions of ...
"Was I your father, or, wasn't I?"
It becomes very sort of an unimportant part of the past,
for me, anyway,
I think it's much more important for you.
For me, it's just one of those things happened along with life.
So, don't feel sorry for me, If you have pity, it should be for Harry,
who loved and lost Diane and then missed out on the childhood of Sarah that he produced.
Had that been my lot, I would have been mortified when I read that DNA result.
I've been a very lucky man, and, of course, for one of my luckiest moments,
I have to thank Harry Gulkin for loving Diane.
Sarah's only what she is because of that night of love between Diane and Harry.
Had I been her biological father, she would have been entirely different.
She might have been better or worse, but she would definitely not have been the Sarah she is today.
And that's the one I love.Of the other possible outcome, there's nothing.
You may decide you want to keep this letter to yourself, or to share it.
It's yours, and yours the choice.
You know, look...while telling me your news on Thursday, you twice hugged me as hard as you ever did in your childhood.
That alone made you revelation worth a thousand words.
So, there you have it.
All I know of what happened or what has been reported to me has been told.
I think I wrote this story because it really says so many interesting things about the human condition.
But maybe there was another reason.
Perhaps, deep inside,
I have suffered more of a shock than I would have openly admit.
I sometimes stop and realize that something inside, has for the rest of my life changed.
A certain cord that runs between Sarah and me has been severed, and I am powerless to join it together. It's not a real thing. It only exists because we have developed this facet called imagination, and that is all too real and tangible. It gives pain. It's brief, and soon I am back again at the keyboard, reliving the past 40 years. But I suppose it will always be lurking to catch me unawares. So perhaps this story is a form of denial.
How ironic it is that the final revelation and its aftermath have brought Sarah and I closer together and resulted in me writing volumes, as Diane always wanted me to. It has given me a new lease on life.
/
/
/
I will go on
I will go on.
----------------
The movie used one line from a poem. I found the poem online. Here it is, the red letters are the verse they used in the movie.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines
bu Pablo Neruda
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
When you're in the middle of a story, it isn't a story at all but rather a confusion, a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood, like a house in a whirlwind or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard are powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all, when you're telling it to yourself or someone else.
Margaret Atwood
(Alias Grace)
------
(Narrator to his daughter)
And in some ways,that's why
This whole questions of ...
"Was I your father, or, wasn't I?"
It becomes very sort of an unimportant part of the past,
for me, anyway,
I think it's much more important for you.
For me, it's just one of those things happened along with life.
So, don't feel sorry for me, If you have pity, it should be for Harry,
who loved and lost Diane and then missed out on the childhood of Sarah that he produced.
Had that been my lot, I would have been mortified when I read that DNA result.
I've been a very lucky man, and, of course, for one of my luckiest moments,
I have to thank Harry Gulkin for loving Diane.
Sarah's only what she is because of that night of love between Diane and Harry.
Had I been her biological father, she would have been entirely different.
She might have been better or worse, but she would definitely not have been the Sarah she is today.
And that's the one I love.Of the other possible outcome, there's nothing.
You may decide you want to keep this letter to yourself, or to share it.
It's yours, and yours the choice.
You know, look...while telling me your news on Thursday, you twice hugged me as hard as you ever did in your childhood.
That alone made you revelation worth a thousand words.
So, there you have it.
All I know of what happened or what has been reported to me has been told.
I think I wrote this story because it really says so many interesting things about the human condition.
But maybe there was another reason.
Perhaps, deep inside,
I have suffered more of a shock than I would have openly admit.
I sometimes stop and realize that something inside, has for the rest of my life changed.
A certain cord that runs between Sarah and me has been severed, and I am powerless to join it together. It's not a real thing. It only exists because we have developed this facet called imagination, and that is all too real and tangible. It gives pain. It's brief, and soon I am back again at the keyboard, reliving the past 40 years. But I suppose it will always be lurking to catch me unawares. So perhaps this story is a form of denial.
How ironic it is that the final revelation and its aftermath have brought Sarah and I closer together and resulted in me writing volumes, as Diane always wanted me to. It has given me a new lease on life.
/
/
/
I will go on
I will go on.
----------------
The movie used one line from a poem. I found the poem online. Here it is, the red letters are the verse they used in the movie.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines
bu Pablo Neruda
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
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